Tag: Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

The 19th CPC National Congress convened from 18-24 October 2017. As the established norm, a congress has two functions: a political report, and personnel arrangement. Likewise, the congress also makes substantive policy guidelines for the party-state. In this session too, General Secretary Xi Jinping, in his role as ‘core’ leader, put forward important policy guidelines, which was endorsed by the Central Committee. However, the most important is the canonization of Xi Jinping Thought in the party charter alongside Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, which has made Xi the most powerful leader in present-day China. Thus, questioning Xi will mean questioning the CPC!

Xi Jinping Thought – Part of a Continuum

Xi Jinping’s more than three hour-long speech outlined achievements of the last five years of his tenure, and announced that China is entering a ‘new era’, and laid a new guiding ideology as ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ which subsequently was added to the party charter in power.

Xi Jinping is officially China’s strongest leader in decades. The Communist Party of China’s Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) was unveiled at the end of the 19th National Congress of the CPC in Beijing yesterday with Xi Jinping reelected General Secretary for a second term. The 7-member PBSC includes besides Xi and his Premier Li Keqiang, at least four of Xi’s close allies in key positions. Also, in a departure from Party norms it offers no choice of potential successors to take over from Xi in 2022 when again according to norms, he is supposed to step down from power.

Following the latest confrontation between China and India in the Doklam area of Bhutan, there is clearly an edge to the repeated Chinese calls to India to ‘immediately pull back’ Indian troops to their side of the boundary.

The Chinese have stressed that this ‘is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides aiming at resolving the issue’.

On 27 January 2016, Losang Gyaltsen, Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government, announced in the TAR’s Tenth People’s Congress that his government would accelerate the construction of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway in the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20) period. His government promised to start a preliminary survey and research to build the Nyingchi-Kangding railway section, in the current year. Yin Li, the acting Governor of Sichuan, sent out similar messages a week earlier at the Sichuan People’s Congress. These statements from the top leadership of both provinces reflect the importance of this rail project.

Within a short span of ten days Chinese President and Chairman of Central Military Commission (CMC), Xi Jinping met with key members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and exhorted them to adopt innovation and ‘jointness’. On 23 March 2016, Xi paid his first formal visit as the Party Secretary and Commander in Chief to the National Defence University, premier training institute of PLA. During his visit Xi wanted the NDU to “overhaul its courses and teaching methods, gearing them to foster officers who can command joint operations”. Earlier Xi Jinping met with all the representatives of PLA attending the annual National People’s Congress session on 13 March 2016. During his talks with them Xi wanted, innovation should be given a key position in China’s military development and “urged the armed forces to turn cutting edge technology into real combat capacity.” He further added that, “innovation is the core competitiveness of the military and number one driver to energize growth, and added that China is in urgent need of innovation driven development.”